


Good People and Difficult Choices

by TheLastLonelyWriter



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s05e12-13 The Diamond of the Day, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, I would say I'm sorry but I'm not, warning: it's sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastLonelyWriter/pseuds/TheLastLonelyWriter
Summary: Sometimes, when the moon is nothing but a sliver, and the hallways are lit only by his torch, Mordred lets his eyes drift closed, and imagines it is Camelot’s stone under his feet. He still remembers every twist and turn he walked in that castle. When tears start to prickle at his eyes, he shakes away those thoughts and stocks the camps, snapping at any who cross his path.
Relationships: Knights of the Round Table & Mordred (Merlin), Mordred & Morgana (Merlin)
Kudos: 7





	Good People and Difficult Choices

Mordred hasn’t slept more than a few scattered hours since the night he left Camelot. Sleeping means letting his guard down, and that is not something he can afford to do. He doesn’t feel safe unless he is alone, and even then his eyes still dart from shadow to shadow. He does not sit still but paces and whirls about, cursing his inability to see all around. His hand hardly strays from his sword, and there is defensive magic brewing behind his eyes. He eats and drinks little, and always alone.

He prowls Morgana’s castle with weapon in hand, trying to always keep a wall at his back. He sticks to the shadows, watches each and every member of Morgana’s growing army with equal suspicion. Among the camps, he is known as The Assassin. Children are warned not to incite his anger. 

Sometimes, when the moon is nothing but a sliver, and the hallways are lit only by his torch, Mordred lets his eyes drift closed, and imagines it is Camelot’s stone under his feet. He still remembers every twist and turn he walked in that castle. When tears start to prickle at his eyes, he shakes away those thoughts and stocks the camps, snapping at any who cross his path.

It is on one such nightly haunt that Morgana approaches him. Mordred stands on the crumbling remains of a balcony, watching the fires dwindle below and trying not to recall the shape of the logs that Leon always insisted made the fires last longer on patrol. Mordred almost doesn’t realize that Morgana has approached him, and that scares him from his thoughts.

Morgana’s hair is entirely unpinned, brushed so that it lies long down her back. A pale purple cloak is draped across her shoulders and for a moment, the space between one heart beat and the next, Mordred sees Morgana Pendragon, Princess of Camelot. Mordred knows that it is a ruse, that her cloak conceals weapons, same as her lips. That guards wait in the hallway to run him through should the need arise. That all she wants is to push past his shell of hatred and fear. 

_Always on guard,_ he reminds himself. Only a little ago she had stripped Ari of his powers. Who was to say that she would not do the same to him? _She is your savior princess. She is a sorceress, and her goal is revenge. She wants something from you._ Mordred’s suspicions are right, and Morgana confirms them when she speaks.

“Mordred,” she says, with all the gentle kindness that he remembers from his fever-addled days in Camelot so many years ago, “You have been useful in our struggle.”

 _If I wasn’t,_ thinks Mordred, staring carefully out into the forest, _I would not still be breathing-_ his fingertips flick upwards in an aborted attempt to reach for where the Pendragon crest would be stamped on his armor- _tainted with Arthur’s respect as I am._

“I seek your council,” continues Morgana. Mordred feels her eyes slip down to the twitch of his fingers, hears the honey-sweet smile leak into her words, knows that she considers this battle won, this knight of Camelot hers to command. 

“What do you wish, my lady?” replies Mordred. 

Morgana’s hand settles on Mordred’s shoulder, turning him to face her. Mordred looks at her face without seeing, not wanting to see the echoes of the lady who saved him in the sorceress who now commands him.

“Come. Let’s walk.”

Morgana’s words are an order, not a question. _Does she know,_ wonders Mordred, _how much she sounds like her brother, when she is leading? How their tactics echo each other, how the cadence of their voices are so similar?_ He decides she may have once, but does not now. He follows her back into the castle. Two guards fall in step behind them.

“I wish to send a spy into the very heart of Camelot. We are blind, we have no clear direction to take,” says Morgana. All her practiced softness is gone- her strides are purposeful, her voice is hard. 

_And yet, she still speaks like a lady of the court,_ a part of Mordred’s brain whispers. Morgana holds open a heavy door and leads Mordred into the small, well-lit room that serves as the birthplace of her plans. As they step inside, Mordred hears the guards move into place in the hallway. He still does not feel safe. 

“Arthur and Emrys,” Morgana spits the names as if they are curses, “are too tightly bound in trust for a spy to make any use trying to come between them.”

Morgana settles herself on an old wooden chair as if it were a throne, fingers drumming slowly on the table in front of her. On top of scattered maps rests a sketch of Arthur. Mordred fights the urge to snatch it from the table and shakes his head to clear the sound of early morning training from his mind. He sits stiffly opposite Morgana. 

“What do you intend to do?” asks Mordred, for want of something to think about other than remembered laughter. 

“Well,” says Morgana, grinning wildly, “the next best thing.”

She picks up a quill and dips it in ink, letting dark drops bleed across the papers before scratching a rough circle on Arthur’s drawing. _Around his heart,_ notes Mordred. He shakes his head as Morgana scrawls a sharp ‘Emrys’ in the circle. 

“The innermost confines of Arthur’s trust are beyond our reach,” she says, harshly crossing out the first circle and drawing a large one around it. “But Arthur’s weakness is his heart, and he trusts many more people with his secrets than he should.”

 _Like me,_ thinks Mordred. Almost as if she has heard him, Morgana looks up at Mordred, and a dangerous smile spreads across her face. With a little laugh, she writes ‘the knights’ in her circle. 

“It is here that we will strike!” she declares, snatching a whittling knife from the edge of the table and sharply driving it into the middle of the word she has written. Mordred blinks, but that is the only indication of his surprise that he gives. Morgana turns her gaze once again upon him, and he meets it, if only to look away from the ink drying around Arthur’s heart.

“You know the knights well,” says Morgana, a hint of her false kindness lacing her words. 

There is a question in her statement, one that Mordred isn’t sure he knows the answer to. _Can he betray the knights, so soon after the days when he called them brothers?_ Unbidden, Elyan’s proud smile flashes across his mind, accompanied by the ghost of a side hug and the memory of praise. 

“You need to know where to strike,” says Mordred, carefully. It is not an answer, and they both know it. Morgana’s fingers inch back across the table to the hilt of the knife. Mordred’s hand clutches tight at his sword, until he can feel the bite of the Pendragon crest on the hilt pressing into his palm. 

“Where will we strike?” asks Morgana, in a lilting voice, wrenching the knife from the table. Mordred’s eyes flick to the torn sketch. The word ‘knights’ is barely readable, just ribbons of paper covering one of the many stab marks on the wooden table. 

“Gwaine,” begins Mordred. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, his body fighting his mind’s betrayal. “Is much like Arthur.” Morgana laughs.

“Surely you are playing with me, Mordred,” she says, twirling her knife between her fingers. There’s a warning in her amusement, anger hiding in her eyes. Mordred looks away.

“They are both led by their hearts. They trust too easily,” says Mordred, and he hesitates at the sudden phantom burn in his throat- the first real ale he had ever tasted. “And they are both close to Merlin. Close enough to know his secrets.”

“The weak link,” declares Morgana. There is delight evident on her face, rival to that of a child’s. But as she rises from her chair with a vicious grin, Mordred sees her for all she really is- powerful and dangerous. 

“Tomorrow, I will call for my finest spies. You will pick which among them best suits the job,” she says. As she sweeps out of the room, she pauses to ruffle Mordred’s hair. “You have been most helpful,” she says with a smile.

After the footsteps of Morgana and her guards fade away, Mordred stands. He returns to his room, and stays the whole night there. It is the most time he has spent in one room since he left Camelot. He does not sleep, only paces back and forth and tries not to think about riding a horse backwards.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a comment if you liked it! :)


End file.
